


(Do You Get Scared) To Feel So Much

by IhaveAbadfeelingAboutThis



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: AU, Elder Wand, Greater Good Valentine's Exchange, HEA, M/M, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-27
Updated: 2020-02-27
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:28:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22927966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IhaveAbadfeelingAboutThis/pseuds/IhaveAbadfeelingAboutThis
Summary: Gellert was never expelled from Durmstrang. He never went to Godric’s Hollow. Instead, Gellert and Albus meet for the first time in St. Petersburg, 1904, where they are both in pursuit of the Elder Wand.
Relationships: Albus Dumbledore/Gellert Grindelwald
Comments: 12
Kudos: 69





	(Do You Get Scared) To Feel So Much

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Candyphoenix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Candyphoenix/gifts).



> Is it even still February? Ah yes, just barely...  
> Happy Belated Valentine's Day, Candyphoenix
> 
> Title is from "More" by Sisters of Mercy
> 
> There are a couple of warnings in the end note - but the warnings contain spoilers, which is why they are not up top here

**To Feel So Much**

Men looked at Gellert. When they thought he wasn’t looking, when they knew that he was. He had become used to the attention. It had been years since he had been on the receiving end of indifference.  
Gellert had learned how to tell the difference between men who were sizing him up, who felt threatened, who wanted to know who he was, who wanted to be him, who wanted to fuck him. 

But here in the dining room of the one Wizarding hotel in St. Petersburg, he saw something new - a man about his age with long red hair who held his eyes for a moment and looked at him in a jaded sort of way. This man definitely wanted him, but was guarded too, as if he had become used to disappointment. But there was something – more. Gellert didn’t know what it was, and it was intriguing and infuriating in equal measure.

Gellert wondered if the Wizard was annoyed with himself for allowing himself to show interest. Gellert smirked at him and raised one eyebrow. 

The unknown Wizard nodded at Gellert and stood. However different this man might be, Gellert was not going to follow him. He was not in St. Petersburg to find a lover. That would be an unnecessary complication. Still – he watched the man as he left. His robe was midnight blue – a good quality but old wool robe – older than the Wizard himself, most likely. But the transfiguration job was extraordinary – clearly a recent embellishment. The bottom border of the robe was flickering with flames from which a phoenix with outstretched wings was ascending, wings slowly beating. The phoenix covered the entire back of the robe. Gellert knew the reputations of more than half of the tailors in Europe – and he knew of no professional capable of this work. No, this robe had most likely been customized by the Wizard wearing it. Gellert couldn’t take his eyes off of him – he found himself staring at the closed door of the dining room long after the man had exited.  
When he turned back to the table, he found the number ‘213’ written - in red wine? - on the tablecloth beside his plate. Gellert had to laugh. The audacity. He tapped it thoughtfully and it disappeared.

Gellert took his time finishing dinner, then ordered coffee and dessert, pretending to himself that he wasn’t sure whether he was going to bother to meet with this Wizard. But after 45 minutes, he could come up with no further excuses to linger in the dining room, and he made his way up to room 213.

When he knocked, the door opened, but there was no one there. He cautiously cast a spell – the wards on the entrance to the room were creatively sadistic. As he contemplated accepting the challenge of taking them down, a paper bird flew out to meet him and the door closed. He unfolded the bird and read: ‘I am not in St. Petersburg simply to meet intriguing young men, Herr Grindelwald. I have other business that prevents me from sitting around in a hotel room waiting while you play a game. If you like, you may meet me back here at nine.’  
Gellert vanished the parchment. Nine. That was an hour from now. Surprising the Wizard by being already waiting for him in his room was not worth the time wasted. It would only take ten minutes, maybe less, to break into the room and reassemble the wards, and he too had other business in St. Petersburg.  
Very well. 

<><><>

No games, the note had said, so Gellert decided to humour him and see what would result. He knocked on the door at precisely nine. The red-haired Wizard opened the door and nodded his head without a word. His only invitation was to step back to allow Gellert enough room to enter. He had shed his robe and was dressed simply in a white button-down shirt and fitted fawn brown trousers. He wasn’t even wearing a waistcoat.

213 was a suite – the door opened into a sitting room, with a separate closed door that must have led to a bedroom. That was ideal. Gellert preferred not to have sex in bedrooms – he had no interest in giving even the barest hint that he might consider spending the night.  
He waved his hand to remove the wizard’s clothes – and nothing happened.  
“Not yet, Herr Grindelwald. I could share my cock with anybody. I’m looking for worthwhile conversation, which I am hoping you find just as difficult to come by as I do. Then we can see just how worthwhile you are in other ways.”

Gellert was less interested in conversation than he was in testing the magical power of this fascinating Wizard. His wards, his robe, and now this – it was not hard to block the spell Gellert had cast, but to do it silently, without any indication he was doing anything at all – that was much more unusual.  
Gellert lazily cast a Diffindo, and the other Wizard deflected it, just as indifferently.  
So Gellert cast a Conjunctivitus curse, and it hit. He was disappointed for a moment, until the Wizard laughed.  
“Oh, wonderful – a challenge.”

Gellert took cover behind a chair, but the Wizard hit it with an explosive Depulso, pinning Gellert to the wall with the chair.  
“Don’t think you caught me off guard. When I beat you, I want you to know that I didn’t need to see in order to do it.”

Wandlessly, wordlessly Gellert transfigured the chair into sand, and it fell in a pile on the floor. The other Wizard whipped the sand up into a dust storm, abrading Gellert’s face and hands. He sent the sand flying at the Wizard, and it stopped in midair, then vanished. 

“I admired your robe very much,” Gellert told the Wizard, setting the cuffs of the man’s trousers on fire.  
The Wizard simply vanished his trousers. Gellert gasped, distracted. He had not been wearing underwear, and he was fully erect.  
The Wizard’s vision cleared, permitting him to see the look on Gellert’s face. He laughed.  
“ _Satisfied_ , Grindelwald?”  
Not nearly.

“We could keep sizing each other up, of course. Or we could…”  
A rope shot out of the end of the man’s wand, and he cracked it like a whip – it cut through Gellert’s clothing cleanly – without leaving so much as a mark on his skin.  
“Still interested?” the man asked.  
Fuck yes. 

Gellert’s clothing fell to the floor.  
“Those were very expensive, you know.”  
“I could tell.”

With a wave of his hand, Gellert repaired his shirt and put it back on. Then he vanished his shoes and apparated the eight feet across the room – he was not interested in waiting.  
He pushed the man up against the wall and kissed him violently. He hadn’t wanted anyone so badly in years. Maybe ever.  
“Who are you?”  
Often, he didn’t care. But this man – he had to know.

“Basil.”  
“Basil what?”  
“Oh no, Herr Grindelwald. You will have to earn the rest.”  
Oh, yes. This was going to be fun.

He reached down to prepare Basil, but he was already stretched and lubricated.  
Basil answered the unasked question. “When you set my trousers on fire. Why wait?”  
Why wait indeed? 

Gellert lifted Basil up easily, and he wrapped his legs around Gellert in one smooth motion, as if they had practiced it. He lowered Basil onto his cock slowly, and they groaned in concert. For all the gods. Gellert could already tell he was going to need this again. Once was not going to be anything like enough.

<><><>

How had this happened?  
It was only the second night, and he was in Basil’s bed. He had his shirt off. He never allowed a man to remove his shirt. Sex was quick, functional. Somewhere between scratching an itch and asserting his power over the other man.  
But not Basil – Basil was kissing him. Not on the lips, but on his chest, slowly, as if it were essential to taste every part of him. 

Basil made it down to his abdomen, and his eye was caught by Gellert’s tattoo – the tattoo that no one but Gellert and the tattoo artist had seen (no one but Gellert, for all practical purposes – as he had obliviated the artist).  
Basil sucked on it, and then traced each line with the tip of his tongue: circle, triangle, vertical line.  
“I know why you are here, Gellert.”

Then quicker than he could think, Basil was between his legs, looking up at him.  
“You are going to have to beat me to it.”  
His mouth descended on Gellert’s cock, and Gellert moaned.  
Odin’s balls. Basil was here for the Wand. Of course, of course he was.  
It would be a shame to have to kill Basil. He was the best fuck of his life.

<><><>

Again and again, Gellert couldn’t stop himself from knocking on Basil’s door. He knew that it made no sense, that he couldn’t afford to become attached to someone he was destined to kill.  
No, destined to fight. The more time he spent with Basil, the more likely it was that he would hesitate, that he would give Basil the opening he needed to kill Gellert instead. It was essential that he separate himself from Basil.

But it occurred to him that spending every night with him was putting Basil at the same disadvantage. And that the time he spent in Basil’s room might even give Gellert the upper hand – that this gave him more of an opportunity to learn about Basil’s plans than Basil had to learn about his. Gellert knew this was nothing more than a convenient excuse, but it was enough to console himself with – enough to allow him to enjoy mornings like this one, waking to the sensation of the velvety skin of Basil’s cock gently rubbing against his leg. 

“Gods, Basil.”  
“Albus.”  
“What?”  
“My name. It’s Albus. Albus Dumbledore.”

Gellert was quiet for a moment. He rolled onto his side and searched his lover’s face.  
“Albus.”  
Albus nodded. Clever alias. The transition to calling him Albus seemed almost natural.  
“Why tell me?”  
“When I leave – I want to have given you enough of myself that when we part it hurts you.”

He was too far gone. That should have made Gellert angry, but it didn’t. It even made sense.  
He pushed Albus onto his back and crashed his mouth against Albus’. He was going to claim him more completely than he had done so far. If he was going to be shattered, Albus was going to be shattered too. 

<><><>

“Why do you want it?”  
“Why do you?”  
“Why wouldn’t anyone want it?”  
“And yet – is there anyone else here in St. Petersburg after it, do you think?”  
“No.”

<><><>

They were sitting on a rooftop, looking down at Gregorovitch’s workshop. Gellert looked over at Albus. His fair skin was reflecting the golden light of the afternoon sun, his hair was glowing like fire.  
“We could – we could share it,” Gellert suggested.

“No. That defeats the purpose. How could such a thing be shared? No, one of us will have it, and the other will not, and we will have to decide what we are going to do about that.”

“Perhaps this is more important than the Wand. Perhaps our priorities have changed.”  
“That’s quite a leap of faith you are suggesting we take. We would have to both agree not to take it. And then – could we trust one another? Could you give up the quest? For someone you met nine days ago?”

Could he? The answer would have been easy seven days ago, perhaps four days ago, perhaps even as recently as two days ago. But now? Gellert wasn’t ready to answer.  
“Could _you_? How long have you wanted to be the Master of Death?”

“Since I first read the fairy tale?”  
Albus laughed at himself. “It bothered me, how stupid the first two brothers were. Their gifts needn’t have killed them, if they had been more careful. I was six years old, thinking, ‘I could do better than that.’”  
Gellert could imagine it. He smiled at the thought of six-year old Albus mastering the Elder Wand.

“How about you?”  
Gellert had been better at magic than anyone else his age since he was a small child. ‘Accidental magic.’ What an idiotic term. Gellert had been _intentionally_ performing complex wandless magic since he was eight. Then, once he had a wand to help him focus his intention and energy… with a month or two of practice, he was more powerful even than most of his professors at Durmstrang. He wanted to do more, to be more. Other people might think that what he was doing was extraordinary, but he was bored. What he was doing now was not markedly different from what he had been capable of three years ago. He was levelling off. He wanted more. Needed more. 

“Not so long as that.”  
Albus made a frustrated noise and stood up.  
“I’ll see you at Gregorovitch’s on the new moon. Don’t keep me waiting. I’m interested to see which one of us lives.”

Gellert stood.  
“What?! What did I say?”  
“Nothing. You said absolutely nothing,” Albus said in a hard voice, and before Gellert could argue, Albus disappeared.  
Gellert screamed and the glass panes on the streetlights all exploded.

<><><>

Three hours later, Gellert stood outside of room 213 and beat on the door. A strange Wizard answered the door. Gellert’s eyes narrowed and his jaw stiffened. He drew back and threw a punch, knocked the man over. Gellert’s hand ached. He should have hexed the man. But he had to admit, injuring him in the Muggle way was very satisfying. And there was some measure of relief in the way his hand was aching – it had drawn the pain out of his chest. Yes, he was hurting. But only because he had just hit someone for the first time – nothing more.  
Gellert looked down at this unknown Wizard, at the blood pouring out of his nose. Yes, very satisfying.

He looked back up at the sound of the bedroom door opening. Albus stepped out in his plum dressing gown.  
“You’re late. I almost had to sleep with him.”

For all the gods. This man was the craziest Wizard he had ever met. Gellert fought his urge to take Albus on the floor right next to the interloper – to stake his claim, to show the man what he could not have.  
While he was still warring with himself, Albus casually obliviated the other Wizard and sent him out the window. Gellert went to the window and saw that the Wizard had been set gently on his feet on the pavement outside the hotel. The man looked a little confused, and then set off down the street.

Gellert closed the window and advanced on Albus. He shoved him, and Albus said in a cold voice, “That’s right. Give me something to work with. Show me what you want. Do you want to hurt me? To kill me? Who knows what I might have done with that man. Does it hurt you to think about it? _What do you want, Gellert?_ ”

Gellert pushed Albus onto the floor and tore open his dressing gown. He sucked a nipple into his mouth. Then he disappeared his own trousers.  
“I want for you to fuck me.”

Gellert had never let any man inside of him before, but Albus – he needed Albus so badly he couldn’t breathe. He would give him anything. He would give him that fucking Wand if he wanted it. Anything. If only he didn’t have to let Albus go.

“No. No, first I need to know what else you want.”  
“You. I want – “  
“No.”

Albus rolled Gellert over and pinned him to the floor with a sticking charm. Then he stood and wrapped his dressing gown back around him.  
“Tell me about the Wand, about what it means to you.”  
“It doesn’t matter. You – “

“No, Gellert. For fuck’s sake. No. How am I ever going to believe that you want me more than the Wand if I don’t know how much you want the Wand? How am I going to believe that you want me at all if all I know about you is how you like your cock sucked?”  
“That’s not all you know about me.”

Albus rubbed your face. “You’re right. I know more than enough. Too much. But this last thing I don’t know, and I have to wonder if that is because it is the one thing that is too important to tell me – or if instead because you believe you will be the one to take it, and you are not sure that you will be able to kill me in the end. So, if I live, you don’t want to be any more vulnerable to me than you already are.  
“ _Tell me about the Wand_ , Gellert. Tell me why I shouldn’t go ahead and kill you right now. Why wait until tomorrow night? Why meet in Gregorovitch’s workshop? It would be less complicated to settle this now.”

Gellert considered that it might be better to let Albus kill him than to continue falling, falling. He was sure to hit the earth soon – why wait, indeed?

“It’s yours.”  
“No, it isn’t. I am very close to bored with you right now, Gellert. There are many things I was prepared for with you, but it has been days since I thought you would become predictable.”

Predictable. Gellert knew that that was meant to hurt, was Albus’ way of getting what he wanted out of Gellert. And Gellert, Freyja spare him, wanted to give Albus what he wanted, but he didn’t want to make it easy for him. Wandlessly, wordlessly, he threw Albus across the room, at the same time breaking himself free of the sticking charm that Albus had cast on him.  
“Of course, you already knew that was going to happen,” Gellert said.

He called Albus’ wand to him. “And this too.”  
He cast an Incarcerous on Albus, hogtying him.  
“And naturally you knew that your wand obeys me now. Not that that likely means anything.”  
Albus began laughing.  
“I imagine you are anticipating me hitting you, or perhaps fucking you, but that would be too – predictable.”

Gellert tickled Albus’ feet.  
“Fuck! Cut it out!”  
“No,” Gellert said, continuing to tickle Albus, now on the backs of his legs, then his sides, not letting up until Albus began hyperventilating.  
“You have said no to me six times since I’ve returned to this room. That was one for me. I get five more.”

“Untie me,” Albus demanded.  
“You won’t get me to spend my noes as easily as that,” Gellert answered.

He moved closer, until his face was inches from Albus’.  
“I have been bored myself, Albus. What does the Wand mean to me? You are bored with Wizards? I am bored with Magic. What is a Wizard when he is bored with Magic, Albus? Hmm? I had wanted the Wand, and the Stone, and the Cloak – to be more powerful than any one Wizard had been before, thinking that perhaps I would no longer be bored.  
“But perhaps _you_ hold the solution to my boredom. Perhaps your power and mine – have you read of dual casting?”

“No,” said Albus with a wicked grin. Gellert laughed appreciatively. The bastard was raising his count.  
“Liar.”  
“No one has managed it in hundreds of years.”  
“No,” said Gellert with a smile, “they haven’t. But I believe there have not been two Wizards so powerful and so intertwined in centuries.”

“Intertwined,” Albus said flatly, with an almost bored incredulity.  
Arse.  
Gellert released him. He tossed Albus his wand.  
“Now you have my Wand. You didn’t take it from me – I gave it to you. Can you turn it against me as I turned yours against you? Or do I mean as little to you as you once did to me?”

“Depulso!” Albus cast, throwing Gellert against the wall. The pain that had been in his chest and moved to his hand was now in his back, in his arse, in the back of his head. Yes. Finally. This felt – true. Real.

Albus ran over to Gellert.  
“Fuck. Fuck. Gellert – I didn’t mean to throw you that hard.”  
Gellert tried to push himself up and failed. He smiled up at Albus.  
“Yes, you did.”

“I did not, you bastard. The back of your head is bleeding.”  
“So? Stop gawping like an idiot and fix it.”

Albus rolled his eyes. He took Gellert’s wand and cast the spells that knit the skin back together. Gellert reached back to touch it – it was if the skin had never been broken. There wouldn’t even be a scar. Gellert cleaned up the blood.

“Why did you provoke me like that?” Albus asked, reaching down and touching Gellert’s face.  
“I deserved it.”  
Albus shook his head and leaned down to kiss Gellert, more gently than he had in days.  
“You are insane,” Albus said.  
Gellert laughed.  
“Great minds break alike.”

Something in Albus’ face shifted.  
“I love you. I hate that I love you. I didn’t want to.”  
“Me neither. It’s the worst thing that ever happened to me,” Gellert said with a smile.

Albus laughed. “You still don’t have any trousers on.”  
“Hmm. You are right. What are we going to do about that?”  
“Nothing. Because we still don’t know –“  
“If anyone can destroy that Wand, the two of us can do it together.”  
“No,” said Albus, “because –“

“Stop saying ‘no,’ you bastard,” Gellert interrupted.  
“ _No_ , I won’t,” Albus said, smirking. “The Wand. It will belong to one of us before we can destroy it.”  
“Not if we do a poor job of stealing it.”  
Albus fixed Gellert with a side-eye.

“One of us has to defeat Gregorovitch in order to properly master the Wand –“  
“We mastered each other’s wands.”  
“And what makes you think we didn’t defeat one another?”  
Albus laughed. “You’re right. We did, didn’t we?”

Albus kissed him again and pulled back to look Gellert. “I love you.”  
He reached down and began stroking Gellert’s cock.  
Gellert’s eyes closed against his will. He bit his lip to hold in his moan. He bit down harder – he needed the pain to focus on so that he could say the last thing that needed saying.

“Tomorrow, we can simply quietly steal it. Together. Without encountering Gregorovitch at all.”  
“And you think we can destroy it?”  
“It’s worth a try.” 

Albus moved down between Gellert’s legs, and he began licking Gellert’s cock, slowly. Gellert twisted.  
“Albus… please…”  
“Still want me to fuck you?”  
Gellert took a deep breath. He was so gone. So so gone. As if he had not already known.

“No. I still _need_ you to fuck me.”  
Albus moved down further, licking Gellert’s puckered hole. Gellert lifted his hips. He needed more. He needed Albus even closer. Albus summoned a pot of oil. He circled Gellert’s hole with increasing firmness before pressing one finger in.

“First time, gorgeous?”  
Gellert moaned.  
Albus withdrew his finger.  
“I asked you a question, Gellert.”  
“Yes – you would be - the only one.”  
It was Albus’ turn to moan. 

He sucked on Gellert’s inner thigh for moment.  
“Your arse will be mine entirely?”  
“Always,” Gellert promised.

Albus applied more oil, and worked his finger back in.  
“I am going to be gentle with you, then. Hard and fast can wait for another time.”  
“Albus –“ Gellert protested.  
“We have plenty of tomorrows. You agree?”  
“Gods, yes. Forever.”  
Albus laughed.  
“No one gets forever, if we are running around destroying Hallows.”

“Shut up and fuck me.”  
“Not yet.”  
Albus inserted a second finger.  
“Promise me you are not going to ask me to fuck you harder when I’m inside of you.”  
“I don’t know –“

“Please. Because I am not going to be able to hold back if you ask, and I don’t want to hurt you.”  
“What if I want you to hurt me?”  
“Then just say the word. Tomorrow.”  
“Albus!” Gellert shouted as Albus began working his prostate. “Fine, anything! Just – just fuck me already, you miserable son of a bitch.”

Albus cast a lubricating charm and a stretching charm to take Gellert the rest of the way, then he positioned himself and began easing himself into Gellert – so slowly, achingly slowly.  
It felt – strange. Almost wrong. But so right, too. And finally Albus was all the way in him, closer than close, and nothing had felt so perfect before.

Albus began moving, and Gellert couldn’t think of anything, anything at all. And all he could say was “Albus,” chanting it over and over again, “Albus, Albus, Albus…” Until he couldn’t even say that anymore. Until all he could do was moan.

<><><>

It was easier than they had imagined, stealing the wand. There were plenty of wards, of course, but working together, they didn’t miss any of them, and they took them all down in less than half the time they could have done it if it were one of them alone. Gellert had perfected a detection charm, so they were able to avoid Wizards easily on their way to the nearest good apparition point. 

Gellert took them by side along to Helsinki.  
“I thought – you said that we were going to do this underwater.”  
“Yes. Problem?”  
“Well – the Gulf is frozen over.”  
“Not all the way down. It is perfect for our purposes.”

Albus looked sceptically from Gellert to the ice.  
Gellert laughed. “I’m serious. It is going to be easier for us to construct our underwater room if we are standing right above it. Which we can do this time of year.”  
“Underwater room. I had wondered how you were expecting us to cast Fiendfyre under water.”  
Gellert smiled at Albus without a word, then disappeared and reappeared about 80 yards out from shore. Albus followed him.  
“Feather-light charm,” Gellert advised. “No sense in falling through prematurely.”

“I think – this will be easier with dual casting.”  
They had only agreed to destroy the Wand together, but why not practice with this slightly less difficult challenge. “We need a room on the floor of the Gulf, a 12 foot cube, let’s say. It needs to be filled with breathable air, and the walls of it need to be strong enough to take the weight of the water above.”

Gellert took Albus’ hand and kissed his palm.  
“Ready?” Gellert asked.  
Albus took a deep breath. “Let’s do this.”

Gellert continued holding Albus’ hand, and they each raised their free hand – almost instantly, a model of what they wanted appeared and they held their hands out flat as if holding the cube, though it was not resting on their hands but floating above them.  
Albus’ eyes widened, and he looked at Gellert. Their eyes met and they began laughing.  
“I knew it!” Gellert crowed.

They directed the cube down, and it passed through the ice as if it were not there.  
When they felt it settle on the bottom of the Gulf, Albus asked, “Expand it?”  
“Yes,” Gellert answered. Gellert pictured it in his head, and they concentrated on growing the cube until Gellert squeezed Albus’ hand to indicate that he could tell it was the right size. 

“And now all there is to do is apparate in.”  
Albus rolled his eyes. “Yes, that shouldn’t be difficult at all.”  
“Scared, Dumbledore?”  
“Are you kidding me? I can’t wait.”  
Gellert smiled. He knew. He felt exactly the same way.

In a secret, sheltered room beneath the Gulf of Finland, the two Wizards cast a concentrated Fiendfyre spell, and held it for more than ten minutes, keeping it tightly confined to the Wand – not allowing it to grow any larger than they needed for it to be.  
No one Wizard could have done such a thing by himself – _perhaps_ Merlin, but perhaps not – however powerful he had been, Merlin had been only one man. But together, Gellert thought – together with Albus… magic had no limits.

It was as he was thinking that that the Wand exploded. They got the shield charm up just in time, but there was no protecting their room. They were thrown out into the near freezing water. Albus kept them warm while Gellert propelled them to the surface and tore a hole in the ice. 

They lay on the surface of the ice for a moment, both breathing heavily.  
Albus started laughing uncontrollably. “That was outstanding!”  
Gellert grinned and rolled over on top of Albus. “Yes, we were.” He kissed Albus, then leapt up and spun around.  
He reached down and pulled Albus up, then drew him close.  
“Dance with me.” 

“Gellert? That may have been one of the best experiences of my life, but –“  
Fine, no dancing.  
“But it is cold, and a warming charm will just melt a hole in the ice?”  
“I’m sure we could figure a way around that – but I may only have enough energy left –“  
“To apparate back to the room, yes.”  
Gellert held Albus so closely that he could feel his heart beating.  
“I love you,” he said, and then apparated them away without giving Albus time to reply.

<><><>

Gellert had managed to persuade Albus that the quickest way to warm up would be to snuggle under a blanket with their clothes off. No, in truth, Albus had not really needed persuading.  
Albus’ contribution was that they would be even warmer with some hot chocolate spiked with brandy. And though Gellert was more of a coffee drinker, he readily agreed. Albus had told him a couple of days before, ‘the taste of chocolate in your mouth is even better than the taste of chocolate in my own mouth,’ and that was proving to be highly motivating.

“Thank the gods Fiendfyre doesn’t consume oxygen like regular fire.”  
“Yes, we would have needed a much bigger room. Though smoke, in truth, would have been a much bigger problem.”  
“Yes, well, the explosion was not unproblematic.”  
“That I had not anticipated,” Gellert admitted.

They finished their hot chocolate and Gellert sent the cups away. He pushed Albus over and lay on top of him.  
Albus looked at him, “You are the most astonishing man.”  
“Oh? Not bored?”  
“Never. I just wanted to hurt you.”  
“You did.”  
“Never again. I know – I know how far you will go for me now. I don’t need to test it. This – the Wand –“

Gellert pressed his lips to Albus’ and insinuated his tongue into Albus’ mouth. Albus wrapped his arms around Gellert, clutching Gellert’s back.  
Albus was everything Gellert wanted.

Albus broke away and looked Gellert in the eyes. “Are you sorry?”  
“About the Wand? No.”  
“I am a little. It was a relic, a piece of history.”  
“No one was going to master Death. Not ever. I think the Hallows were instead a way for Death to destroy any who would dare to imagine they could defeat him. Either way, it would have destroyed us.”

“And the dual casting is – “  
“Yes, ok, that is also true. The dual casting is already better than anything either of us could have done with that Wand alone. And we haven’t even spent any time practicing.”

“You didn’t let me say before – you apparated us away too quickly – “ Albus started to complain.  
“Oh? Say it now then.”  
“I love you, Gellert. More than any Wand. More than the stars in the sky on the night of the new moon. More than my life. I love you.”

“You are everything to me, Albus,” Gellert answered. “Thank you for trusting me. You – if you hadn’t believed me – one or both of us might have died tonight. Until we cast the Fiendfyre – all night I was waiting for you to kill me. And I would have let you do it.”  
“Gods, Gellert. Don’t tell me that.”  
Gellert laughed. “Oh, I’m not allowed to thank you for letting me live?”  
“Fine, just this once.”

Gellert pressed his chest against Albus’ and nuzzled into the soft warm skin of Albus’ neck.  
They lay like that for a long time until Albus broke the silence.  
“What now?”  
Gellert gave Albus’ neck an exploratory lick before lifting his head.  
“Now, I think, we do whatever we want.”

**Author's Note:**

> So these guys have an unhealthy dynamic - this is an adversaries+casual sex to enemies+lovers to co-conspirators+lovers piece which is... not one of the usual Grindeldore dynamics.  
> As such, there is manipulation, dueling, violence, and one instance of Gellert tying up Albus nonconsensually - then tickling him and not stopping right away when Albus tells him to.  
> All sex is consensual, and they do get their shit together in the end.


End file.
